Axel Rudakubana was referred to counter-extremism scheme three times

11 comments

1. I’m not sure you can get a clearer example of the limitations of Prevent and our obsession with terrorism:

   > One of the referrals followed concerns about Axel Rudakubana’s potential interest in the killing of children in a school massacre, it is understood.

   > His behaviour, including his apparent interest in violence, was assessed by Prevent as potentially concerning. But he was deemed not to be motivated by a terrorist ideology or pose a terrorist danger and was therefore not considered suitable for the counter-radicalisation scheme.

   He was identified as possibly being a risk ~~of murdering a load of children in a massacre~~, but because he wasn’t motivated by an ideology – and so not a terrorist – the Prevent scheme didn’t cover him.

   24 years of obsession with terrorism has got us into this absurd situation where if it is terrorism it is the absolute worst and anything that can be done to stop it must be, but if it isn’t quite terrorism (even if it has the same impact) there is no funding or support.

   > Rudakubana, who was 17 at the time of the Southport attack this summer, was first referred to Prevent in 2019 when he was 13. A further two referrals were made in 2021, all when he was a school child living in Lancashire.

   > After one of the referrals, it was recommended that Rudakubana be referred to other services. It is not known if this happened.

   He wasn’t a terrorist or at risk of terrorism. Just murdering a load of people. So no one cared (or more accurately, there was no, fully-funded, scheme to handle him).

   Also, for those still claiming he is a terrorist:

   > Police say that despite extensive searches and investigation there is no evidence of a terrorist motivation for the Southport attack carried out by Rudakubana during a Taylor Swift-themed dance class.

2. Reading the article, it seems like he is genuinely not motivated by terrorism. He was referred three times to Prevent, and every time they judged that he was not a terrorist risk. Police has also searched and investigated thoroughly and found no terrorist motivation for the attack. He seems to have a true fascination for violence, whether that’s school shootings in the US or terror attacks in the UK. A deeply troubling and violent boy that lashed out at children for no clear reason. Hope he gets the jail time he deserves.

3. Interesting. Extreme enough to be flagged repeatedly by Prevent as a concern, but not terrorist related enough to allow them to act upon that with a referral to their service.

   >Prevent exists solely to stem the flow of recruits for terrorism and there is no similar scheme for those thought to pose a risk of violence where terrorism is not suspected.

4. Anyone know what powers social/mental health services or the police have to detain someone who’s showing an interest in murdering children, but hasn’t actually committed a crime?

   It feels like there’s a grey area here that needs addressing, if a schizophrenic is showing an obsessive compulsion with massacres of children then I think we can all get behind some level of detention for that individual until they can be medicated and/or receive therapy until authorities are confident they no longer pose a threat.

5. [removed]

6. [removed]

7. [removed]

8. [removed]

9. So the key learning here for any aspiring ~~terrorists~~ is to conceal your ideology whilst searching for your information on how to create mass casualties. That way, even if the authorities do identify you repeatedly, the fact that you aren’t committing crimes against or on behalf of a made up fairy they won’t bother you.

   This fully explains the ‘he’s not a terrorist’ statements coming out pretty quick because they already knew about him and what he wanted to do, just decided that dealing with that sort of murder is someone else’s job so left it.

10. His human rights were more important than the 3 he killed and all the others he tried to kill.

11. That seems like a pretty big fuck-up to me. Sounds like we need to do a pretty big rethink of how we approach terrorism

Comments are closed.